We are an organization dedicated to raising awareness about the history, culture and true lives of Romani people worldwide.
We confront racism and oppression wherever we encounter it.
We try to make connections with all the "isms" that make up western culture.

Thursday, March 7, 2013

MONK CONFERENCE IN TORONTO

THIS IS IN RESPONSE TO A CONFERENCE TO BE HELD IN TORONTO.
AGAIN, A CONFERENCE ABOUT ROMANI WITHOUT ROMANI.
THANK YOU MY FRIENDS AT THE ROMA COMMUNITY CENTER IN TORONTO
MORGAN
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“Nothing About Us Without Us”

“Khanchi Pa Amende Bi-amengo”

Dear Ms Klein:

We are writing to you as supporters, members and members of the Board of Directors of Roma Community Centre, Toronto. As an active and highly-regarded organization at the forefront of the Romani human rights struggle in Canada, RCC is usually contacted or consulted when organizations and institutions plan to hold events about our people. We were therefore surprised to discover – not from conference planners, but from a third party – that a conference on Roma was being organized at the Munk School for Global Affairs. Even though RCC volunteer, Professor Cynthia Levine-Rasky contacted you, offering assistance and a list of prominent Romani academics/ activists as speakers, we had no response to our suggestions.

It is not unusual – but highly egregious – that Roma have been, and continue to be, interpreted and studied by outsiders without our active participation. Although the grad students at Munk School may have had the best of intentions, it is unfortunate that they did not understand the seriousness of excluding the very people about whom they were planning to present (and represent).

Any work with a vulnerable group or one positioned differently in relation to the academics must be done collaboratively: the grad students should have taken the initiative to approach Executive Director Gina Csanyi-Robah and RCC at the outset, inviting her to help shape the program in order to ensure the kind of inclusion that is consistent with social justice principles. The Tri-Council Policy Statement for Research Involving Human Subjects calls this process 'community engagement' when it comes to working with Aboriginal groups to whom one could argue that a refugee group may be compared. Even if this policy may not strictly apply to organization of conferences, the principle is nonetheless essential in dealing with those who have systemically been under-represented and marginalized. The grad students should have consulted with Ms Csanyi-Robah about the program, asking her how she wanted to be integrated into it rather than imposing that on her, at the end, in a limited role. Imposing her role on her is inconsistent with the principles of equity and power-sharing in the spirit of social justice work.

The exclusion of Roma participants seems to be linked to the decision “to keep to an academic focus” (from a letter by Ms Jenna Hay to Gina Csanyi-Robah). Roma and the groves of academe are not mutually exclusive. As you know, we have academics in many fields, some of whom have been excluded from the conference. In her letter to Ms Csanyi-Robah, Ms Hay continued: “the organizers are committed to the original vision …… that is primarily focused on the Roma in Europe” without learning that many of our academics share this focus, and from a Romani perspective. In fact, the Roma academic perspective is critical to the three areas outlined in your call for papers. (Romani scholar Dr. Ethel Brooks presented in January at the UN on the Roma Holocaust – culminating years of persistent effort by Roma to have a Romani speaker included for the first time.)

We fail to see how the inclusion of Roma would in any way interfere with students’ work in the conference’s organization and goals. Indeed, they could have gained valuable experience and insights from RCC. Clearly the organizers did not heed Cynthia Levine-Rasky’s point in her September 25th letter that “it would be unfortunate if there were to be yet another conference about a group of people (be they Indigenous, refugees, Roma, or other groups) who were excluded from the discussion.”

It is imperative that any conference in which a marginalized and persecuted ethnic group is discussed or studied must have fair consultation and representation (especially when a representative body already organized by this group actually and actively exists). Under whose guidance was it deemed fit to exclude us? For too long we have been studied, written about, filmed, and discussed; for too long we have been isolated from academic discourse, and your conference is continuing this practice. In your intention to study Roma as “Europe’s Outsiders: The Persecution, Isolation, and Integration of the Roma (1945–the Present)” you have unfortunately cast Roma in a similar position here in Canada: we have been relegated to the margins, excluded, isolated, and have been made the outsiders – once again – at this conference.

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FLAG OF THE ROMA

LOLO DIKLO : RrOMANI AGAINST RACISM

Lolo Diklo : Rromani Against Racism is an organization dedicated to providing information about the true situation of the Romani (Gypsies) in the world today. We are committed to confronting racism and oppression wherever it is found.

BACKGROUND

The Romani are a people who are not very well known. We are an ethnic group of people originally from India. We left India and arrived in Europe sometime in the 1300's. There are many theories as to why we left India. This is the work of academics, and we have some. Most Romani are more concerned about daily survival to worry about documentation of our past. We know who we are.

What is known about the Romani is, for the most part, stereotypically based. We are portrayed as romantic, carefree wonderers or child stealers, pick pockets and beggers.

Today the Romani of Europe face the same discrimination they have faced for centuries.